Re: avoiding strdup()

On Sat, 09 Mar 2024 16:37:19 -0800
Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> writes:
[...]

Meanwhile, saw someone in another group write:
>
char * something;
something = strdup("writable string etc.");
if( something == NULL ) { etc. }
>
But that won't work if --std=c99, does work for g99 and c2x.
The (Linux) man page says:
/* Since glibc 2.12: */ _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
>
I asked Google about it being a POSIX extension
added at that late date, and it gave me an answer
about the C standard:
>
"C9X London meeting update"
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.std.c/c/pMaEU_8Rb7w
 _ _ _ _ _
2. strsep and strdup are not being added. strsep() is out because
not enough people wanted it to vote it in; strdup() lost on the
grounds that it would be the *ONLY* function other than *alloc()
in the entire library whose return could be sanely passed to free(),
and this is surprising.
 _ _ _ _ _
>
Also:
<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32944390/what-is-the-rationale-
for-not-including-strdup-in-the-c-standard>
>
Anyway, pointed out that they can just use an initializer, something
about which I was clued in by a friendly person in this very group.
 

 strdup() and strndup() are being added to the C23 standard.
 

What is justification?
What strdup() can do better, for any chosen value of better, than
strlen()+malloc()+memcpy() ?